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NEW DELHI: It was a rare moment. Estranged Ambani brothers Anil and Mukesh shook hands at a meeting of leading industrialists with Leader of Opposition L K Advani at which BJP firmly pitched itself as the government in waiting and promised to restore confidence in India's growth story if voted to office.

The presence of both the Ambani brothers was significant and perhaps in sync with the turnout of industry bigwigs who came to hear Advani and offer their views and prescriptions on the financial crisis. The industry presence lent credence to BJP's bid to present itself as the shadow government ready to set right the economy.

The Ambani family sideshow happened just before the meeting got underway. Anil reached a few minutes ahead of time and was chatting with some invitees when Mukesh arrived and when the younger Ambani held out his hand, it was held firmly and warmly. This is only the second time after The Economic Times awards function that the two brothers have been seen together.

Those looking on included ICICI Bank honcho K V Kamath who presided over the demerger of Dhirubhai

Ambanis's empire and is seen as possibly the only person who can get the brothers to bury the hatchet.Advani's invites included Sunil Mittal, Rahul Bajaj, Venu Srinivsan, Shashi Ruia, Subhash Chandra, G M Rao, Baba Kalyani, J P Gaur, Sajjan Jindal Ficci's Rajeev Chandrasekhar. Noticeable absentees Ratan Tata and N R Narayana Murthy were said to be travelling.

Advani in his outreach to industry seems to have taken a leaf out of the Barack Obama campaign .

The Democrat contender gathered academics and business figures like Warren Buffet, Larry Summers and Paul Volcker to help frame his policy response on issues including the financial crisis -- unlike rival John McCain, he did not commit himself to an early position on the economic situation.

Advani���s main message to the gathering was that BJP was "willing and able" to tackle the economic challenge. "The question asked of me is what will our first priority be. I say it will be restore confidence in India's growth story as it was when NDA was in power at the Centre," he said.

He made no direct comment on the Manmohan Singh government, but stressed that "indigenous factors" in the slowdown could not be ignored.

The impressive turnout at Advani's meeting came after two successful meetings Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi had with industry in Mumbai and Delhi, and can be cited by the saffron faithfuls as reflective of business's assessment of BJP prospects.

BJP's effort to position itself as front-runner will see the party convene similar interactions with trade unions and agricultural business as well as farm representatives in the coming weeks. The party feels that it can drive home the message that the government's response to the slowdown has been halting and piecemeal.

BJP said it would move swiftly to dispel an atmosphere of insecurity and pessimism. There was a deepening sense of fear, uncertainty and a lack of confidence amongst the poor as well as middle classes which the BJP wanted to address and was keen to listen to what industry had to say, said party insiders. "This is part of a learning experience for the party and we found many points of convergence," said a senior BJP leader.

Advani was assisted by former ministers Yashwant Sinha, Arun Shourie and Jaswant Singh alongwith RSS ideologue S Gurumurthy and former Delhi Lt Gov Vijai Kapoor at the interaction where the consensus seemed to be that there could no one-size-fits-all solution to the financial crisis which needed a sector-wise approach. The BJP offered that if there were specific projects in states ruled by it that needed to be speedened up, it would do so.

BJP sources said there seemed to be an agreement that an incremental approach to the crisis would not work and that the situation needed a series of well thought-out steps that would help boost the confidence of all players - banks, stock market, industry and the consumer. Industry honchos stressed that urgent measures were needed not in terms of India's domestic demand but also as many firms had an increasing global footprint and if these expansion plans were rolled back, it would affect India's image as an emerging economic powerhouse.